Rotary mowers are used for cutting vegetation of various types; crops and non-crop vegetation such as grass, weeds, and brush. Most commonly they are used to maintain roadside ditches and other public lands. These rotary mowers are often a wing-type rotary mower apparatus include two or three mower decks mounted side by side. The decks are offset fore and aft to provide the required over lap from the rotating blade under one deck to that of the adjacent deck, and the outside decks or wings, fold upward to allow for transport. The wing rotary mowers are most often of the trailing type; wherein the mower is supported by the wheels behind the deck and by the hitch on the towing tractor. A wing-type rotary mower of the trailing type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,546,707 to Degelman et al.
Conventional trailing wing rotary mowers follow directly behind the tractor, and the mowers travel along or in the roadside ditch. In this situation, the mowers have to cope with a side sloped terrain as while as crossing intersecting road approaches. This often results in uneven cuts as well as gouging of the approach as the mower is pulled up and over.
When a ditch slope is at the typical 10 degree grade or when mowing in the roadside ditch, mowers pulled directly behind the tractor work safely, but can be extremely uncomfortable for the operator who sits at an angle in the tractor. When a tractor travels on ditch slopes with a steep grade or when steeper grades present themselves, a potentially dangerous situation occurs, that sometimes results in tractor roll over and injury or death to the operator. Some small degree of offset can be provided for trailing mowers by moving the tractor drawbar to one side, an adjustment commonly found on tractors. For conventional mounted rotary mowers, an offset is provided in the hitch of U.S. Pat. No. 4,195,860 to Helams, and as well in the hitch of U.S. Pat. No. 6,138,445 to Toth. In all cases the degree of offset is to small to allow the tractor to remain on the road while cutting the ditch. U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,475 to Pearen et al. provides an intermediate offset hitch apparatus that is hitched to the tractor on one side so as to tow behind the tractor. A rotary mower is hitched to the Pearen et al. apparatus at the rear of the opposite side. The apparatus essentially provides a hitching location and drivelines for the mower that is a clone of the tractor hitch it self, but offset sufficiently to allow the tractor to remain on the road while the mower cuts the slope of the ditch.
It would be desirable to have an offset rotary mower apparatus adapted for attachment to a tractor such that the rotary mower follows a path offset from the path of the tractor allowing the tractor to remain on the road while the mower cuts the slope of the roadside ditch
It would be desirable to have an offset rotary mower that floated independent with respect to the tractor to allow the rotary mower to follow the ground contours, to ensure an even cut when mowing roadside ditches as while as preventing gouging of the road approaches when going over them.